>Hilmar -
>back in the day I was doing technical interviews - I asked questions similar to this - but did not ask for source code.
>
>I wanted to know the size or scope of a project that a developer had worked on.
>
>So I would ask metrics questions similar to the following:
>
>1. For your largest project - what was the counts on:
> program files, forms, reports, classlibraries, classes or objects inside a classlibrary.
>2. For that largest project - what percentage was your code ?
>3. For program files - what was the largest LOC in a program file?
>4. For classlibrarise - what was the largest # of classes contained in it?
>5. For a form - what was the largest number of methods you had written ?

That seems much more acceptable.

>I never asked to see source code - I've always worked in shops or for clients where an NDA was in place, and I assumed that anyone I interviewed had the same type of NDA in place. Instead - I would give a basic programming test in VFP, then study their code after they finished, and then do an instant code review with them about their code.
>
>Asking for complete source code is bad.
>Asking for source code samples, snippets etc MAY be acceptable. But I am always leary of asking for source code, even if samples of one's work.
>
>Another question I would ask ? What was a really mondo cool nifty thing that you developed in VFP that your users might have said back to you:
>1. WOW - I did not know you could do that.
>2. Oh My God - you did that in such a short time.
>
>But for this particular case ?
>Extending *it* into something to deliver to said potential employer ?
>I would fire off a question, something similar to -
>The work I performed in the past was covered under a Non Disclosure Agreement. I cannot show you any codebase without your firm contacting my prior firm, asking for permission to view my code, and your firm obtaining a NDA from them. Here is the contact information .... Please let me know when you have an NDA in place with them ?

Or better yet, forget about it - it probably ain't worth the trouble anyway.